An Investigation of the Audit Expectation Gap in Yemen

Auditors and financial statement users may have differing beliefs about the responsibility of an independent accounting firm performing an audit of a client’s financial statements. This study attempts to assess the possible existence of an audit expectation gap between auditors and financial statement users in Yemen. A wide gap was found in the areas of auditor responsibilities for fraud detection and prevention, auditor judgment in the selection of audit procedures and maintenance of accounting records. In order to reduce the expectation gap and improve decision-making by financial statement users, the results of this study support the adoption of the long form audit report, educating the users of financial statements and improve the audit quality by professional accounting bodies.